On the 14th local time, Israeli Defense Minister Katz said that the Israeli Defense Forces’ bombing of a Syrian regime tank convoy earlier that day was a “message and clear warning to the Syrian regime.” In a statement on the same day, the Israeli Defense Forces said that the Israeli military found several tanks moving towards the southern Syrian province of Suweida, and launched air strikes to prevent them from reaching Suweida because their presence in the south “could pose a threat to Israel.”
The Israeli Times quoted Katz as saying that Israel would not allow the Syrian Druze community to be harmed, and “would not stand idly by.” The Syrian interior department issued a statement on the 14th saying that intense armed clashes had broken out in Suweida since the previous day, with clashes concentrated in the Magus area of Suweida City. The clashes have killed more than 30 people and injured about 100. The director of Suweida Provincial Hospital, Nabil Nofal, said on the 14th that more than 65 people had been killed and about 200 injured in the clashes. Due to the serious injuries of some of the wounded, the death toll may continue to rise.
The Syrian regime security forces entered Suweida Province on the morning of the 14th to “restore order and protect civilians.” The Israeli Times quoted the British-based “Syrian Human Rights Observatory” as reporting that the clashes occurred between the local Druze community and Bedouin tribes, and some members of the Syrian regime security forces supported the Bedouin armed forces.
The Druze are mainly distributed in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Golan Heights occupied by Israel. Israel has deep historical and cultural ties with the Syrian Druze community. After the Syrian revolution last December, Israel seized the opportunity to occupy the buffer zone in the Golan Heights and adjacent areas on the grounds of “self-defense,” and publicly demanded that the southern Syrian provinces of Suweida, which have a large number of Druze people, be “completely demilitarized,” refusing the entry of Syrian regime forces or other armed forces into the south or establishing a foothold there. (By Zhang Zhuoya and Wang Weiwei from Central News)